Installation problems

[jeqcho]

Following the README to install the MCP server via editing the json doesn't work. However, following the online guide does work. A word of caution is that following the online guide ends up nuking my json file for other mcp servers.

[anatoly314]

Thanks for reporting this! I'd like to help but need a bit more context.

About the README config not working:

The README config for this addon uses Streamable HTTP transport:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "anki": {
      "url": "http://127.0.0.1:3141/"
    }
  }
}

A few things to check:

• Anki must be running with the addon installed (the MCP server only starts when Anki opens)
• Claude Desktop needs to be restarted after editing the config
• You can verify the server is running with: curl http://127.0.0.1:3141/

Could you share what error you're seeing? Does Claude Desktop show the Anki tools at all, or does it fail silently?

About the online guide:

The ankimcp.ai desktop guide is for a different project (anki-mcp-server) that uses .mcpb bundles — not this addon. This addon (anki-mcp-server-addon) runs directly inside Anki and only needs the JSON config shown in the README.

If the .mcpb installation overwrote your other MCP server configs, that's likely Claude Desktop's extension install behavior rather than something we control. But it shouldn't affect this addon's setup since they're independent.